


With a rock

by Trojie



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Mental Breakdown, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 01:58:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The paperwork says she had a nervous breakdown. May would say she retreated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a rock

**Author's Note:**

> For my hurt-comfort bingo 2013 card, prompt 'nervous breakdown'. Title from the BTVS quote 'Cavalry's here. Cavalry's a frightened guy with a rock, but it's here' (Xander Harris).

Every time she hears the word _cavalry_ whispered behind her back, May swears she's going to turn around and kick someone's teeth in. Not that the person whose teeth she knocked out would know why she'd done it. Melinda May has done a very good job of disappearing in the paperwork. Her old SO would have been proud. Kicking in teeth would blow her cover. 

When Phil Coulson tracks her and gets her back to drive his bus, as he puts it, she knows what to expect, with two fresh-faced Academy graduates on board and a field agent like Ward, who would have been in training about when she was dropping out. She hears the word a lot more than she'd like, and she tells Phil no. No, she won't go into combat. No, she won't take point for him the way he wants her to. No. She drives the bus. That's what she's here for. That's all she agreed to. 

Doctor Streiten oversaw her medical and reluctantly cleared her for this assignment, and told her to mind her own business, not unkindly, when she asked about Phil Coulson's last physical. 'Melinda,' he'd said after a little too long staring at his charts. 'I can refuse to clear you on mental health grounds, if you'd like.'

'Am I unfit?' she'd asked him coolly.

'How do you feel about it?' he returned. She hadn't really had an answer, so he kept talking. 'I think it will do you some good to be out of the office, if you feel you can handle it. Working with other agents again might be a valuable exercise. But I don't want you to put yourself into a situation you're genuinely uncomfortable with.'

'I have orders,' she pointed out.

'I'm giving you a choice.'

Well, she chose, for what it's worth. 

The paperwork says she had a nervous breakdown. May would say she retreated, if anyone ever asked her in a way she felt like giving an answer to. Mostly they just stay out of her way, and keep talking about the cavalry behind her back. Sometimes people she knew before tell her she's changed, as if she somehow betrayed them by doing it. The cubicle, and now the cockpit, are simpler, lines to fall back behind, and after them, she has her room and her bed, and the dark. Alone.

And now she has a team. More people to lose, and she thought she'd hardened to that but she finds that she still has it in her to fight for people, where she might not have fought for herself. That's okay. It's probably good. She does Tai Chi in the mornings now with a renewed sense of purpose in the strength of her body. And she starts to watch her new teammates more closely. Skye with her secrets, particularly, but also Ward, the porcupine. 

May knows what Hill wrote on Ward's application. Unlike Hill, she doesn't think his sharpness is a handicap, and she certainly doesn't believe it goes any further than skin-deep. He's a competent field agent, he's reliable under pressure. And like any good field agent, he has things hiding in his past that drove him to become that good field agent in the first place. Things he doesn't want to talk about, ever. Hence, porcupine. 

May can respect that. Maybe that's why she lets down a little of her guard around him. She wants to see what he'll do if she gives him an opening. And there's a tiny part of her starting to think that maybe the safety of the dark would be increased if someone else was in here with her, watching her back.


End file.
